Four

The next morning, Nessa served breakfast in the same spot where the prior two meals had been served: on the outdoor dining table that had been moved down from the deck to the patio outside Ignazio’s training gym. It made sense in the interim to have meals served there, since the house was a disaster area and its owner spent the majority of his time in his gym during the off-season, anyway.

Bryer was in attendance again, looking chipper, though not exactly well-rested. Nessa recognized the satisfied exhaustion following a night well spent in some groupie’s bed and chuckled to herself.

After setting out the main dishes, she went back to the kitchen for some extra servings of protein. Both men were in rare form this summer, already well on their way to wearing out the single female population of the region on their annual off-season bet. She imagined said females were not complaining, though.

“Come sit with us!” Bryer called.

“No thanks, honey. You both still smell like sex. Do me a favor and shower before lunch?”

“I do not . . .” Bryer said, dipping his head to take a whiff of himself. Then he leaned over and inhaled close to Ignazio’s shoulder. “Hmm, foxy. Did we both wind up with the same girl last night?”

Ignazio shook his head. “Twins,” he muttered around a mouthful of food.

Nessa just shook her head indulgently and headed up the outdoor steps to the rear of the house, ready to work on the garden for a little while before lunch. Her stomach knotted when she saw the doors to the interior propped open and heard the sounds of power tools coming from within. As she drew close, the warm scent of cut wood hit her nostrils. She had walked through the empty space on her way down to the kitchen at dawn that morning, and it’d been peaceful and dead quiet.

But now the place was completely different, with the beginnings of cabinets and countertops lining the walls and the floors marked with crisscrossing lines of red and blue chalk marking out the areas where she’d described wanting the different pieces to go.

She wandered through while Gaius was busy cutting and stopped at one conspicuously empty section by the wall with a heavy, rough board nailed over it. It looked messy and unprofessional, to say the least, unlike the rest of the neatly arranged beginnings of the buildout.

“What the hell?” she muttered, then turned to look at Gaius. He turned off the saw and hoisted a big length of wood up over one shoulder, carrying it toward the far wall where he held it in place at about hip-height. He apparently hadn’t seen or heard her, so she waited in irritation, torn between griping at him about the messy wall treatment and not interrupting what looked to be a rather intricate construction he was working on. His big biceps bunched under the strain of holding up the piece of wood as he carefully fitted each end into notches she realized were already in place in the existing frame. Maybe they were meant to be cabinets at some point.

Nessa cleared her throat. “I’ve got a question!” she called to his back.

Gaius tensed, but didn’t turn. He only twitched a shoulder and bent to start hammering at the wood in front of him. Nessa tilted her head, distracted by the ripple of the muscles beneath his shirt and the way his big thigh flexed as he half-knelt over where the wood was joined. After a moment, he stopped and turned, only giving her a cursory glance before his gaze darted to the wall that she was emphatically pointing at.

“What’s this?”

“Old dumbwaiter. That’s just temporary until I can rip the damn thing out. Figured I wouldn’t interrupt your cooking to do it. I’ll get it first thing tomorrow, if that’s all right with you. Unless you intended to deliver me food while I work.”

“Oh. I guess . . .” she said, feeling about as dumb as the dumbwaiter.

“Forget it. Ig didn’t hire you to feed me.” He gave her a sardonic look before turning back to the saw to begin cutting another piece.

“So, it’s looking . . .” She tried to find something nice to say, but the place wasn’t much to look at despite the obvious signs he’d made significant progress that morning.

Gaius cut her off. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got countertops scheduled to be delivered in the morning. Want to get these cabinets installed today. Unless you have any changes?”

He crossed his arms and glared at her as though daring her to mess with his plans again. All Nessa could see was how huge his chest and arms looked whenever he stood that way.

She let out a little huff and shook her head, mostly to clear it of the strange warmth that had risen up from deep inside. “Not at all. You just go on about your cabinetmaking. I’m going to work out in the garden for a few. If you want my input on anything, you know where to find me.”

“That I do,” he said, sounding for all the world like he had zero intention of asking for her input if he could help it.

Nessa stalked through the door, strangely irked by his dismissal. She headed to the cottage at the far end of the garden, where she changed into shorts and a loose-fitting halter top that both supported her generous bosom and let her skin breathe in the heat. She re-pinned her hair more securely and grabbed her work gloves, then stalked back into the garden, ready to rip out some useless vines while imagining ripping the surly carpenter a new one.

She’d just started tearing at the foliage along the back wall when she heard a voice calling her name. Preparing to launch her mentally rehearsed tirade at the big bear, she turned and had to bite her tongue.

“Man, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” A tall, lanky shifter Nessa hadn’t seen in years loped over to her and lifted her in a welcome hug.

“Levi! Wow! You got . . . big,” she said, laughing when he released her. The young cheetah shifter had been barely more than a cub the last time she’d seen him. She stood back to take him in and shook her head. “Already a lady-killer, look at you! What are you doing here?”

“I work here now. Ig and Bry hired me as their assistant. That means doing whatever you need me to do today, according to Ig.” He stuck his thumbs in his pockets and surveyed her destruction with a frown. “So, angry weeding, is it?”

Nessa snorted. “Not angry, just enthusiastic. I want to turn this section into the nightshade vines. They’ll flower nice in springtime and be filled with fruit in the summer and fall. Figured I’d work my way in from the garden walls. The paths will be lined with Precious flowers, and I’ll put raised herb beds outside the kitchen doors with benches along one side.”

Levi listened, enraptured, and followed her around the garden while she gave him a tour, all the while describing her plans for the various fruit trees and vegetable patches she planned. In her mind, the garden was already a magical labyrinth of culinary wonders, and all hers. She even managed to mostly forget about the arousing sight of the big bear who was still hammering away inside her kitchen.